Saturday, November 14, 2015

Anthony Watts has really, really, really got his nose out of joint. What caused his nose to become disjointed was a UK newspaper, The Independent. It has modernised its website and poor little Anthony can no longer find a minor article from March 2000 - more than 15 years ago.

It's a conspiracy, he moans. It's all a plot to hide bad headlines. He wrote (archived here, cached here):

In light of what happened yesterday with The Independent apparently disappearing a famous climate prediction blunder article while leaving an article critical of its use intact, this opinion piece by Joe Wallach seemed pertinent -Anthony

Sheesh. He doesn't mind hiding his own inconvenient articles, does he? Try to find this one at WUWT: "An interesting issue with ice core data". Here's the link:

Double standards at WUWT

Now Anthony Watts doesn't permit more than about two commenters at a time who will stick up for science. It's like an unwritten policy. He'll do anything to get rid of unwelcome people - well, he does seem to stop short of public flogging but he doesn't stop short of bullying and intimidation. And when that fails, he just bans them.

If he bans people, it's okay. But if any other blogger decides that they prefer science to conspiracy nuttery and lies and defamation, then it's censorship.

The latest website that's come to his attention for not permitting denier disinformation is called Unpublished Ottawa. Good for them. They are to be applauded. Some denier blogger called Joe Wallach said:

According to one alarmist earlier in 2015, who refused to allow me to recommend the work of a group of French scientists and engineers to his readership, he stated that:

“Climate Change denial is one of the subjects we don’t allow on UnpublishedOttawa.com because it’s not based on real facts. Anyone can grab facts and make an argument out of it, but when the vast majority of scientists, who have little to gain, agree that we have a problem, a problem that is already manifesting itself all around the world, then allowing posts that deny this reality, is in our opinion akin to intentional deception.”

Spot on.

There's another website that's to be applauded. It's called boomerwarrior.org. Joe wrote:

More recently, I submitted a post to another human climate change site in the Ottawa, Canada area, in which I asked if anyone could provide a single piece of irrefutable, undeniable evidence that humans are responsible for global warming. That, too, was blocked by the purveyor of the site http://www.boomerwarrior.org/.

That website hasn't always banned Joe. I presume it's the same Joe Wallach who posted a number of comments there, including one that indicated he thinks global warming is caused by volcanoes! Or at least he seems to reject all the science that shows that warm water is melting the ice sheets in West Antarctica, and thinks that it's all down to volcanoes that have suddenly burst forth. Only he's wrong. They've been there for probably thousands of years - maybe more.

Joe also complained that a college cancelled a talk by a science denier. He thinks that educational institutions should teach two sides of every "argument". Let's see:

God created the world 6,000 years ago versus geology

The earth is flat versus the earth is spherical

Spontaneous generation versus microbiology

Climate science is a hoax versus climate science

Fairies live at the bottom of the garden versus soil science

Apples fall upwards versus gravity.

Last I looked, there are plenty of places for deniers to hang out. There are climate "hoax" and other conspiracy blogs like those of Judith Curry, Anthony Watts, Jesse Ventura, Tallbloke, Junk Science, and many more. There are organisations deniers can join like the Cornwall Alliance, CATO, CFACT, the Heartland Institute, the Institute of Public Affairs, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, wearechangevictoria and the secretive Open Atmospheric Society.

When all else fails, whine about nothing. If deniers want to complain about censorship, then they can. No-one is stopping them from showing off their double standards. They can even call their complaints an exercise in "free speech" if they want to.

Shake a leg, Anthony Watts, COP21 is just around the corner

Anthony's running out of puff and out of time. COP21 in Paris gets going in a fortnight, and all he's got so far to persuade the world that climate science is a hoax, is that he can't find a fifteen year old article from a UK newspaper, and a couple of websites don't allow deniers to use them as freeby propaganda tools - to spread their lies about climate.

Suck it up, deniers! Just like WUWT frowns on people promoting science, some blogs frown on people promoting anti-science.

An unsympathetic critic might say that there's a certain level of inconsistency at WUWT when Watts bans critical commenters for using pseudonyms and fake email addresses while allowing Sparky, indefatigablefrog and hawaiianbear (to pick three at random) and outing posters' personal information when they begin to irk him.

The same unsympathetic critic might also ask why anyone would expect Watts to be competent at an Internet search when he hasn't exhibited competence in any other field. Apart from rabblerousing, maybe.

I wonder if that was from:http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/french-society-of-mathematicians-global-warming-crusade-is-aburd-and-pointless/

http://www.alterinfo.net/Le-rechauffement-climatique-mystifications-et-falsifications_a13066.htmlChrome translate:Global warming: hoaxes and forgeries(Gish gallop of usual wrong memes, exacerbated by loss of formatting in translation.)But:“A tidal power station uses the energy of the tides, in this case the kinetic energy of rotation. Generating electricity this way slows the rotation of the Earth, and in a lesser extent, that of the Moon: it is not a renewable energy. Winds are due in part to differences in atmospheric temperature (and thus the thermal energy of the Sun) and partly to the rotation of the Earth. Use them to generate electricity and cool the Earth slows down. This is not renewable A solar panel uses thermal energy from the sun. Be used to pro- duce electricity returns to cool the Earth. Furthermore, in view of the reflection on the glass surface, a significant portion of solar energy, normally received by the Earth, is sent into space: the balance is particularly negative.”

OK, tidal and wind power slow the Earth’s rotation, and solar cells cool the Earth, so not renewable.

Ha. Priceless. Well John, as you know, once you decide to take the anti-science stance, you are committed to an attempt at countering everything that science stands for. Because that is the only way, at least in a world that is demonstrably warmed by mankind's doing, that you can naysay everything that is easily proven by countless papers in the fields of:

physics, chemistry (I had to backtrack there and put that 2nd, or ethon will be well pissed off), biology, geology, climatology (mind you, these are in no particular order of significance), agronomy, hydrology... meh, you get the idea.

I wonder what these mathematical geniuses think happens to the potential and kinetic energy of tidal currents and flows without human intervention?

It would be one thing if you sprang such a question on a room full of unsuspecting undergraduates. That a brief Internet search returns useful information such as NASA: Dissipation of tidal energy only highlights the silliness of these unnamed cranks.

I am missing dbstealy's implied threat of rape in the post. Are you sure you did not mean Gloateus Maximus with his charming statement, “If you want Arab Muslim refugees in Europe, then by all means invite them into your home to rape your wife and daughter”? Oops sorry, got it, I ignored the link the first time. There are some really sick bastards out there, aren't there?

It is almost shocking to see the level of religious or racial bigotry plus the appalling level of ignorance of the real world being displayed by many of the posters.

Gloateus Maximus has a great suggestion,”How about letting in only Christian and Yezidi refugees, plus Kurdish women, children and old men? You can help Turkey cover the costs of harboring Arab refugees”. Duh, most or all of the Christians are Arabs.

This is up there with the brilliant suggestion, well worse but showing the same level of ignorance, that someone came up with after 9/11 of dropping thousands of propaganda of Arabic language leaflets in Afghanistan. Other than the facts that Afghans don't speak Arab and the literacy rate was probably about 20-30% it was a reasonable idea. One often needs fire-starting material. I am sure many Afghans would have appreciated the gesture.

Tom, Anthony doesn't want his flock to read it anyway, as that might uncover the nuances and caveats surrounding any quote. Having said that, in my part of the world, not an hour drive from the UEA, snow does seem to be quite rare and, if it wasn't for Frozen, my six year old granddaughter thinks snow is just a cold version of rain that melts on contact with the ground.

Yep Millicent. It took the paper 15 years to "pull" the article. Deniers manufacture conspiracies out of thin air.

Reminds me of the time that the nuttier utter nutters decided that the White House got Twitter to delete a dumb tweet from a denier. As if anyone in the White House takes any notice of denier nonsense from a nonentity, let alone would strong-arm Twitter to search through a zillion tweets to delete the nonsense. And expect Twitter to comply.

The tweet wasn't deleted needless to say, it's just the idiots didn't have the brainpower to find it.

To top it off, when they were finally pointed to it, the idiots turned around and claimed the White House got Twitter to undelete it!

I have pointed out you seem to think you can read minds. I have pointed out that newspapers don't pull stories simply because somebody got embarassed. And I don't see how any of that translates into my agreeing with anything you said.

But thanks for the blatant example of how climate change deniers live in their own little bubble of alternative reality. But how do you work that on a daily basis? Do you twist every conversation you have with the people around you? Do people constantly walk away from you shaking their heads at your deluded mindset? Or is it just when the topic offends the fossil fuel industry that you become so badly divorced from reality?

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All you need to know about WUWT

WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary, Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase:

Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure.

Definition of Denier (Oxford): A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scientific or historical evidence.
‘a prominent denier of global warming’
‘a climate change denier’

Alternative definition: A former French coin, equal to one twelfth of a Sou, which was withdrawn in the 19th century. Oxford. (The denier has since resurfaced with reduced value.)